nt.
He advances with hasty strides and bent-down head to his rostrum, an
elevated platform, on which stands a plain, high, pine desk. He unfolds
his notes, looks over the rim of his spectacles at the attentive
hearers, who sit ready to write down the words of wisdom he is about to
utter, and begins with the short address, "_Meine Herren._" There is
then an uninterrupted gliding of pens for three-quarters of an hour,
until, above the monotony, rarely the eloquence, of the speaker, the
great clock in the centre of the building gives the significant sound of
relief to busy fingers and rest to ear and brain unaccustomed to such
slow, entangled, lisping, laborious, in rare instances manly delivery.
The lecture is at an end, and each prepares to enter another auditorium,
or wends his way home, to study out the notes taken, consult the
authorities quoted, complete or even copy his work anew. In the study of
these _hefts_ consists the main preparation for future examinations, as
text-books are rarely used, save in Austria, and the examiners are the
professors themselves, who will not ask the candidate much beyond what
they have embraced in their own lesson.

With a remarkable degree of skill, the practised German student can take
down, even when the delivery is by no means slow, the pith and essence
of a whole lecture. Yet there is much abuse in this; and it has called
forth, ever since the invention of printing has made the multiplication
of books by transcription unnecessary, much just, though at times unjust
criticism. A German writer has said, that the man of genius takes his
notes on a slip of paper, he of good abilities on a half-page, while the
dunce must fill a whole sheet. Now the reverse would be quite as true
in many cases. For though thoughtless writing may be little more than
wasted labor, yet there is nothing that can fix more steadily thoughts
and facts in the mind than the precision and constant attention required
in following a lecture with the pen, especially when the words of the
professor are not taken down with slavish exactitude, but when, as is
most generally the case, merely the thoughts are noted in the hearer's
own language. The ideas thus gained have been assimilated and become the
listener's own property. There is thus generated a steady transfusion,
the surest remedy against flagging mental activity. Many a foreigner
writes down the lecture in his own tongue, and values highly this
training of const